Main menu

About me: Simona Petrescu

I was born in Bucharest, Romania and studied English language and literature. I’ve always – but ALWAYS! – thought I’d become a writer, but life somehow seemed to be teaching me that I dream too much. Until one day, recently, when I decided that it had been teaching me wrong lessons – or that I had got a few things wrong. Wanting to be “down-to-earth” is in some situations only a pathetic excuse for not taking the risks. For wanting to please and conform to expectations. For being afraid to be the up-in-the-air for a change.

I’ve been a teacher of English all my (professional) life. First in a language school, then freelancing and starting a language school of my own. I did mostly corporate training courses and was so lucky to get to work with great people – both in terms of “people stuff” and in terms of professional competence. I learned from them, I guess, just about as much as they did from me – but hushhh don’t tell them, or they’ll bill me for it.

I am now living in Germany and I read and write most of my time. I almost feel as if I was on a sort of re-educating programme. Jobbing and freelancing for a living makes one forget there is so much precious knowledge in this world. And so much variation in the way the wind feels, the colours the old trees on our streets are taking, or the smells of the vegetation that come out with the changing seasons.

My teaching and linguistics background have been the source of Enterprise English. The concern about my daughter’s future, whether she will be prepared to make sense of this world and be equipped with what it takes, is what generated The Rose and Its Name. While my own, fluid, mysteriously significant life experience has pushed me again and again in the direction of Forever Quixote.